City of Seattle Seal

On Monday, May 13, the Seattle City Council adopted a resolution enlisting City departments to develop outreach strategies to educate and inform the public about new healthcare coverage under the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act (ACA). ACA is the national health insurance legislation approved by Congress in 2010, which goes into full effect in 2014.  The Affordable Care Act requires that most members of the public enroll for healthcare coverage by January 2014. Departments will coordinate with the efforts of community partners to enroll all newly eligible residents in the new healthcare coverage options.

The City of Seattle has an extraordinary opportunity to increase the health of our residents by working diligently on enrolling folks in the expanded Medicaid program if they are eligible and in the health care insurance exchange if their incomes are too high for Medicaid. There are an estimated 26,000 Seattle residents who will be eligible for fully paid health care under the Medicaid expansion. Another approximately 30,000 Seattle residents will be eligible for partially subsidized coverage under the insurance exchange program. This is the most significant advance in health care since everyone over 65 years old received health care coverage with the enactment of Medicare in 1965.

However, many people do not know about the new health care law or understand how it will operate. Those who can now qualify for Medicaid will have to sign up and go through a process to verify their eligibility and enter the system. Those who can get partial subsidies must sign up for the health care exchange, find out how much subsidy they qualify for, and then select the insurance coverage that best matches their needs and their ability to pay. The State is funding trained resource people to help with this, but people will have to know about this opportunity and then sign up. That is where the City outreach comes into play.

Seattle’s outreach plan will include publicity efforts as well as person-to-person support for individuals, particularly communities who need more intensive help with the application processes and accessing health care services. Our goal is to ensure that everyone who can be covered actually accesses the appropriate information and services.

This is an unprecedented opportunity to help Seattle residents receive the care they need. It is also an opportunity to lower health care costs by decreasing reliance on high-cost medical services such as emergency room visits. And everyone in the city will benefit when we have a healthier, more productive population that is better able to contribute to and participate in our economy and civic life.

It’s a win-win-win for Seattle, but we have to participate to ensure that we realize all of the benefits. We are committing ourselves to helping people thrive by supporting the implementation of the ACA.

This study was commissioned last summer in response to the initial access proposal, which focused on vehicle parking. The Sound Transit Board has adopted new policies that emphasize fully integrated access plans, and the City of Seattle and Sound Transit partnered to develop a plan for the Northgate light rail station that would support people traveling to the station by bus, bike, walking and car.

Along with the access study, the Sound Transit Board and the Seattle City Council both unanimously approved a $20 million investment in bike/ped access, $5 million dollars from each entity to fund a portion of a bike/ped bridge across I-5 and $5 million from each entity to fund bike/ped projects around the station area. Both ST and the City are fully committed to funding these projects; the City is now working on identifying the remaining funds needed to perform environmental work, complete design, and construct the bridge (these funds need to be secured by July 2015). The access study will help determine whether the proposed projects would increase ridership and the bike/walk shed around the station by providing benefits to bikers and walkers.

The great news is that the study shows that these investments offer a very good return. The bike/ped bridge across I-5 increases the number of walkers accessing the station by 13% and the number of bicyclers by 4%, while the cycle track on 1^st Ave will increase bicycle access by 6%. All of the potential projects demonstrate benefits to bikers and walkers.

The expected mode share of riders that will access Northgate Station in 2030 and weekday boardings by mode are summarized in Table 1 below. Table 1 also summarizes the increase in station ridership due to other potential projects such as streetscape improvements. The number of new walkers and bikers who would travel to the station as a result of these combined projects is expected to increase by 845 boardings each weekday, a 6% increase in total new weekday station boardings.

In addition to creating new station ridership, these potential ped and bike improvement projects would also improve access to the station for other expected station users who were already planning to come by bicycling or walking. Table 2 summarizes the expected number of station riders who would use and benefit from individual proposed bike improvement projects. Table 3 summarizes the number of expected station riders who would benefit from potential pedestrian improvement projects.

While this is encouraging data, final decisions on what improvements to construct will not be made until after public input on the proposed projects. The first opportunity to respond to the proposals will be at Sound Transit’s Northgate Station 60% design open house on May 23rd, 6-8pm (presentation begins at 6:30pm) at Olympic View School auditorium, 504 NE 95th St.

After receiving public input, Sound Transit, the City of Seattle, King County will make recommendations on a final project list. Policy makers must do everything we can to make transit a safe and convenient form of transportation. That is both an environmental and social justice imperative. Completion of this study is a great start to making this very important station as accessible as possible for all riders.

Comprehensive Plan map, 1950

On Monday, May 13^th, the Council unanimously adopted the 2012-2013 Comprehensive Plan Amendments. Under State law, the Comprehensive Plan (Comp Plan) can only be amended once a year (with a few specific exceptions), and the process involves a lengthy and thorough review of proposed amendments. The Comp Plan is not taken lightly by the City, and we are cautious about changing it.

State law also calls for a periodic full update of the Comp Plan, which the City is required to complete by 2015. This process began last year, and is now moving into high gear. Our goal is to reduce complexity and make the Comp Plan simpler and easier for people to understand, and easier for the City to implement. Even as this full update is underway, the City will also continue the annual amendment cycle in 2013-2014, which will begin with a call for proposals in the near future.

The current group of amendments includes some new policies that are intended to help shape the full update. The most significant addition are the new “Transit Communities Policies”. These policies augment the City’s Urban Village strategy by adding new sets of criteria to ensure that transit investments and housing development are more closely linked. The set of policies approved this year focus on creating the conceptual framework for transit communities, and on integrating the transit community concept built on walksheds surrounding areas that have frequent transit service with the urban village strategy generally built on existing commercial and residential nodes. We anticipate that making a closer linkage between transit service and development opportunities may lead to revised boundaries for urban villages and centers, and clearer priorities for future investments.

The transit communities policies were developed by the Seattle Planning Commission, and have been extensively reviewed and refined to create a clear path to making them useful parts of the Comp Plan. The revisions made by the Council defined the walkshed, emphasized the relationship to the urban village strategy, and added criteria for community engagement in working on specific changes in affected communities.

The Comprehensive Plan amendments include the following other important additions or modifications:

• Extensive reworking of the policies around climate change to reflect the new goal of carbon neutrality and the specific strategies that are included in the update of the Climate Action Plan.
• Revisions to the Urban Design element to emphasize and define the connections between the built environment and the natural features of Seattle, and to emphasize the importance of public space and parks.
• A new Healthy Food Policies element that creates the policy framework for the Seattle Food Action Plan, approved by the Council on April 29.
• Updates to the Broadview/Bitter Lake/Haller Lake and Rainier Beach Neighborhood Plan policies, the most recent neighborhood plans to go through a major review.

For details on the amendments, please see website.

Duwamish River and Industrial District, 1999

The first three proposals have been received and evaluated for the Industrial Development District (IDD). The IDD is a partnership involving the City of Seattle, King County, and the State of Washington that seeks innovative proposals for industrial development that have been challenging to implement due to regulatory, policy, or financial issues. I and my staff developed this idea as a project to add new vitality to Seattle’s industrial sector.

The IDD initiative seeks proposals that meet three criteria:

• Provide positive economic benefit
• Result in equal to or better measurable environmental performance than would result from current regulations
• Are located on currently industrially zoned land

We chose this approach because it has become increasingly clear that prescriptive regulations tend to be very good at stopping bad things, but we need to promote good things – and government regulations do not have the nimbleness or flexibility to encourage innovation.  So we are setting broad parameters to foster creativity around the goal of providing jobs and economic activity while enhancing the environment.

The Office for Economic Development has selected two of the proposals to advance as pilot projects. The third proposal was judged to have too many uncertainties and potential pitfalls, and was not selected in this round; however, the parties will explore the concept further with possible applications to a future round of proposals.

The first proposal selected was submitted by the Port of Seattle. The Port suggests that the seismic standards that are used to evaluate piers and warehouses are too stringent. The standards are based on those developed for office and industrial buildings, but the Port structures generally have few people working in and around them, and are relatively low buildings that have minimal risks. They estimate that they could save up to $600 million in cost savings if seismic regulations for their facilities were designed to better reflect the unique nature of their structures. The first steps in this project are to better understand the risks and possible consequences from changing the standards (including the impact on resilience – the Port’s ability to bounce back after the earthquake), and then to develop new standards if it appears truly warranted. If this project turns out to be feasible, the potential benefits in jobs and cost savings could be quite large when the Port upgrades their facilities to serve larger ships.

The second proposal accepted was submitted by the Manufacturing Industrial Council (MIC), and proposes to limit the siting of daycare centers in industrial zones. The MIC notes that the standards for cleaning up industrial sites to accommodate the special health risks to growing children are very costly, and suggests that if companies were not required to meet these standards, they could save significant amounts of money. While at first this may seem like a weakening of environmental standards, the results could be counterintuitive. Sites continue to be polluted because cleanup is triggered by new development and the standards make that cost prohibitive. Slightly modifying the standards may mean each site is cleaned up to a somewhat ‘lower’ level, but it could mean that currently very polluted sites are more likely to be cleaned up. Ecology agrees that this makes sense, but there are questions as to whether it is appropriate to limit daycare centers and if this can be enforced into the future. 

Both of these are puzzles that require careful and thoughtful analysis to see if the results do justify the modification of the standards. The third proposal was more like what we expected to see, a proposal to save money on stormwater treatment and compliance by creating joint treatment facilities covering several properties. The argument is that there would be economies of scale, and that there would be environmental benefits because the facilities would come on line more quickly and in advance of actual construction on some of the sites. While the agencies were interested in this proposal, there were enough legal and policy concerns that they decided to develop a more general policy covering this issue prior to accepting a specific proposal.

The IDD is a hard concept to implement and a challenging one to work through. It asks whether a set of tradeoffs will actually result in both environmental and economic benefits, and the agencies are appropriately cautious in making decisions to proceed. Nonetheless, if these projects are found to meet the two benefit tests, the potential for positive outcomes is significant. And success in these ideas could stimulate many more ideas in the future.

The IDD is an exciting concept that can create jobs and enhance the environment.  It has special promise in the Duwamish, where the environmental cleanup can be leveraged for economic development. That is why not only the involved governments, but business, labor, and environmental organizations have come together to support getting this work underway.

The Plan builds on my Local Food Action Initiative (LFAI), adopted by the Council in 2008 in response to the growing public interest in local, healthy food. Numerous steps have been taken to implement the initiative in the last several years, including providing more stability for Farmers Markets, expanding the City’s community garden (p-patch) program, increasing the City’s commitment to improve nutrition and reduce hunger, and creating land use code amendments for urban farming that make it legal to grow and sell produce and products. The LFAI has been widely publicized and used a model around the country, and the National League of Cities is now promoting the adoption of local food policies as part of its sustainability initiatives.

Our work on local food has now gone beyond the LFAI, with the creation of the Regional Food Policy Council, which I Chair, and with creation of a new a position in the Office of Sustainability and Environment to coordinate our food work. In recognition of the need for a more formal and coordinated strategic approach, the Council first commissioned a consultant to draft a food policy, and then worked with the Mayor’s office to move this draft through a community consultation process and create a formal plan.

The core elements of the Food Action Plan are to:

• Create and sustain strong interdepartmental and intergovernmental coordination on food issues.
• Enhance partnerships with the public and private sectors and community-based organizations in the City and across the region.
• Stimulate collaboration among community organizations, institutions, neighborhoods, and governments.
• Focus on racial and social equity and support the communities most at-risk for food insecurity and diet-related disease.
• Increase inclusive communication and engagement opportunities for the public.
• Use data to assess conditions, inform priorities, and track progress.

The Plan has four key goals, with a series of strategies under each.

Goal 1 is to foster Healthy Food for All. Strategies include:

• Promote the location of healthy food access points that can be reached by walking, biking, or transit by all residents.
• Use the City’s purchasing and contracting power to support healthy, local, sustainably produced food.
• Support programs, policies, and projects that help get more healthy food to children and youth.
• Increase affordability of healthy, local food for low-income Seattle residents.
• Promote healthy food, especially in low-income communities and with youth, through education and collaborative efforts.

Goal 2 is to Grow Local to the maximum extent possible. Strategies include:

• Prioritize food production as a use of land.
• Develop and support programs to produce food on City-owned land.
• Support efforts to expand urban food production on privately owned land, including residential, commercial, and institutional properties.
• Explore opportunities to expand rooftop and building-integrated agriculture.
• Work jointly with other jurisdictions to conserve agricultural land.

Goal 3 is to use the food sector to Strengthen the Local Economy. Strategies include:

• Support businesses that grow, distribute, process, and sell local and healthy food.
• Celebrate and enhance local food as an element of Seattle’s economy and identity.
• Support farmers markets and small retailers that sell healthy and locally produced food.

Goal 4 is to Prevent Food Waste. Strategies include:

• Prevent edible food from entering waste stream.
• Increase composting of non-edible food.

Each of these strategies has a set of action items associated with it. Some highlights are:

• Expanding the Farm to Childcare program, which brings healthy food from local farmers into childcare sites, trains child care providers on nutrition and cooking and brings kids to local farms.
• Expanding the Fresh Bucks program, which increases the affordability of healthy food for low-income Seattle residents.
• Growing the successful P-Patch community gardening program, which will expand to 90 gardens throughout Seattle by the end of 2013.
• Leasing underutilized City-owned land to urban farmers, who want to expand food production in Seattle.

The Seattle Food Action Plan lays the groundwork for a just food system in Seattle. Consumers, retailers, distributors and growers all benefit. The actions in the Plan will help get healthier, local food onto the tables and into the lunchboxes of individuals, families and children.

For more information on the City’s food systems work, visit www.seattle.gov/environment/food or my website at http://www.seattle.gov/council/conlin/food_initiative/

This is the first of three major actions that the Council will take to reshape and revise Seattle’s policies around trees. My goal is to create a comprehensive set of policies that will be focused on tree stewardship and restoring the urban forest, and to replace our somewhat fragmented approach with one that has a more cohesive direction and clearer ecological orientation.

In July, we will adopt a revised Urban Forest Management Plan, which we will rename the Urban Forest Stewardship Plan. This plan outlines how the City will improve and maintain the urban forest on City land, and how we will encourage and support residents and businesses in planting and taking care of trees on private property. In the first part of 2014 we will consider a land use ordinance outlining regulations for preserving, maintaining, and planting trees on private property.

The Street Tree ordinance covers the more than 200,000 trees that are planted on City rights-of-way. Trees planted and growing in public places are an important part of the urban forest, the health of which provides a substantial contribution to the quality of life in Seattle. The preservation, retention, protection, and planting of trees and shrubs reduces the impacts of storm water runoff and helps to replenish ground water supply; aids in reducing air and noise pollution and energy consumption; sequesters global warming pollution; maintains and increases property values; provides habitat for wildlife; and enhances the aesthetic environment.

Many of these trees were planted by private individuals, while others were planted by the City. No matter who planted them, they exist on property held in trust for the public by the City. Because of this, they share a unique legal situation: the City has regulatory authority over these trees, but private property owners who abut the right-of-way have responsibility for maintaining any tree not planted by the city. One of the purposes of this ordinance is to clarify what this shared arrangement means and how the City manages it.

The ordinance specifies that “No person shall destroy, kill, injure, mutilate, or deface a street tree or vegetation in a public place by any means.” It also requires that “No person shall plant, remove, or perform major pruning on any street tree without first obtaining a Street Use permit from the Department of Transportation…” This regulation defines the core relationship between the City and property owners.

The ordinance also provides that only tree species approved in the Department of Transportation’s tree list or by the Director may be planted as street trees. It requires that major pruning of street trees conform to a set of standards designed to protect the health of the trees, and that pruning must be done by registered Tree Service Providers, who have been trained to meet these standards.

The ordinance sets out a City policy to retain and preserve street trees whenever possible. Removing street trees is only allowed if they are hazards to public health or safety, are in poor condition, or conflict with construction. Street trees that are removed must be replaced, and public notice is required before the tree is removed unless there is an imminent danger to public health or safety.

Private property owners are responsible for maintaining street trees and other vegetation unless the Department of Transportation has taken on maintenance responsibility. They are required to be pruned to prevent obstructing signals, lights, and views of traffic at intersections, with a minimum height clearance of 8 feet above the sidewalk and 14 feet above the street. Property owners can be required to remove trees that are hazardous or causing unsafe conditions.

The new Street Tree Ordinance is a step forward in the restoration and maintenance of Seattle’s urban forest. It will improve both the health and condition of our streets, and create new assets that will make our neighborhoods healthier and safer.

Sound Transit Link Light Rail train

On Thursday, April 25^th, the Sound Transit Board approved a final plan for the route for East Link through Bellevue. East Link runs from downtown Seattle to Redmond via the I-90 Bridge, and is one of three extensions currently underway for the Sound Transit light rail system. The final plan is the end product of a collaborative process between Sound Transit Board members and staff and City of Bellevue Councilmembers and staff. I served as one of the three Sound Transit Board members on the negotiating team.

The East Link negotiations begin sixteen months ago, when Sound Transit and Bellevue resolved their differences about the core route through Bellevue with an agreement that had three major components:

1. Instead of the surface route preferred by Sound Transit, there would be a tunnel in downtown Bellevue.
2. Most of the rest of the route would follow Sound Transit’s preferred alignment, with some adjustments.
3. Because the tunnel is more expensive than a surface alternative, Bellevue would provide $100 million in funding and work with Sound Transit to identify design elements that would reduce the cost of the route through Bellevue by an additional $60 million.

This turned out to be a difficult task. The ultimate agreement, approved unanimously approved by the Sound Transit Board and Bellevue Council, will reduce costs by an estimated $30 million to $53 million. Bellevue will continue to be responsible to provide the rest of the $60 million or secure additional cost savings.

The negotiations were difficult, challenging, but ultimately cooperative. The core interest from the Sound Transit side was to maintain fast, reliable and convenient service for riders. Bellevue Councilmembers also had to consider concerns raised by neighbors along the route about alternatives that reduced costs, worked for Sound Transit but impacted nearby residences.

The changes adopted include a fully at-grade alignment along 112^th Avenue Southeast south of downtown. As the route moves north from South Bellevue Way and turns east onto 112^th Avenue Southeast it will pass beneath a raised section of 112^th at Southeast 15^th Street to reach the west side of the roadway. A street-level crossing of Southeast Fourth Street will allow only emergency vehicle access into the Surrey Downs neighborhood at that location. The City of Bellevue had earlier proposed a trench alignment along 112^th. The updated alignment is estimated to save $2 million to $4 million.

Trains will travel through downtown Bellevue in a tunnel. This plan replaces an underground station with a daylight station located slightly further north as the tunnel turns east onto Sixth Avenue and transitions to an elevated alignment in preparation to cross I-405. This change will save an estimated $19 million to $33 million.

Other refinements identified through the process will save an estimated $9 million to $16 million. Sound Transit’s work to advance engineering and secure permits will move forward under City of Bellevue land use changes that make the light rail extension a permitted use.

Along Bellevue Way, Sound Transit and Bellevue considered moving the light rail alignment from a trench north of the South Bellevue Park and Ride near the Winters House to an at grade alignment, as well as the possibility of coordinating construction of a new city HOV lane on Bellevue Way with the light rail project. The option would have required moving Bellevue Way to the west and constructing a retaining wall between the road and the Enatai neighborhood. However, the final decision was to keep the Link alignment in a trench. The City of Bellevue will independently evaluate and be responsible for any future construction of an HOV lane.

The outcome was not exactly what either side had hoped for. Some ideas turned out to be not as workable or save as much as had been hoped. Others were viewed positively by one party but not by the other. The ‘road over rail’ alternative and surface crossing at SE 4^th create a more efficient system for light rail, but keeping the cut at the Winters House was not our preferred option.

The 6^th Avenue surface station was the major issue. We were concerned about the quality of the station and whether moving it would reduce pedestrian access and ridership. Ultimately, the Board decided that we could live with the compromise on design. After carefully reviewing the walkshed around the station, we concluded that there would be little or no impact on ridership. This alternative also shortens construction time, and Bellevue agreed to invest $5 million in improving the pedestrian experience. These positives provided significant balance that reduced my initial resistance to this station alternative.

Ultimately, the Board agreed to this package because of the positive elements included, but also because the formal approval from Bellevue clears the way for construction to begin without the threat of litigation and delay. The negotiations forged a spirit of cooperation and mutual investment that will keep this project on track to completion. Property acquisition can begin immediately, construction can start in 2015, and trains can be operating by 2023. Being able to keep that timetable was the critical factor in persuading me to approve a package that would not have been my first choice. By 2030, East Link will carry 50,000 riders a day, creating a transit system that will reduce vehicle traffic and better integrate travel options around the region. That’s worth making some modest compromises!

East Link documents including maps of the alignment are available at http://projects.soundtransit.org/Projects-Home/East-Link-Project.xml

This action completes eight years of work to implement the 2004 designation of South Lake Union as an “Urban Center” in the Seattle Comprehensive Plan. Urban Centers are a key element in the region’s implementation of the Growth Management Act (GMA). They are intended to have high levels of housing and employment growth, in contrast to the rest of the City, which is intended to grow more gradually. Ensuring that South Lake Union and other Urban Centers can accommodate Seattle’s continued growth will take pressure off other neighborhoods that would have to absorb greater numbers of residents than are currently planned.

In 2004 South Lake Union was assigned a twenty year growth target of 8,000 households and 12,000 jobs, approximately 17% of the City’s household growth and 19% of the employment growth for that period. The planning horizon for this rezone extends out twenty years, and by 2031 South Lake Union would have to absorb some 12,000 households and 22,000 jobs in order to continue to meet its share of future growth. Decisions made on this rezone will shape the neighborhood for the next hundred years.

The rezone prepares the way for South Lake Union to become an integrated part of the downtown core and gets rid of the current zoning that fosters ‘breadbox’ buildings occupying full blocks. While allowing greater height in the form of towers, the new zoning also imposes development standards and incentives to encourage a diverse urban form, more open space and an enlivened streetscape. For example:

• Only one tower per block would be permitted on the Mercer blocks. Other blocks can have two towers but they must be more widely spaced than anywhere else in the city.
• There are strong street-level design standards and incentives to ensure a lively and vibrant pedestrian environment such as requiring retail at ground level.
• A series of subarea standards will maintain the character of specific communities through incentives for preservation of landmark properties and existing open spaces.
• A new program that preserves farm and forest lands by transferring development rights into South Lake Union will also generate funds for transportation improvements.

Much of the public discussion centered on increases in building heights. Tower heights will be 400 feet on Denny, matching the zoning on the south side, and will be 240 feet in the central area of the neighborhood. Towers are only permitted for residential development. On the Mercer blocks, between Mercer and Valley, towers will be limited to 160 feet. In the southwest portion of the neighborhood, heights will generally be limited to 85 feet to protect the flight path for Kenmore Air, and there are lower heights in the Cascade neighborhood and in the blocks nearest Lake Union.

Major amendments approved by the Council include:

• Reducing the allowed height on the Mercer blocks from 240 feet to 160 feet, and reorienting the towers to protect views by limiting east-west width to 105 feet.
• Adding the opportunity for three or four 125 foot residential towers on two blocks between Westlake and Dexter and Highland and Galer, where the slope of Queen Anne Hill creates a significant change in the topography. This will replace most of the development capacity lost with lower heights on the Mercer blocks.
• Requiring all new buildings to meet the Gold standard of the Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design (LEED) program of the US Green Building Council.
• Expanding incentives to encourage preservation of all landmarked structures.
• Raising heights in part of the Cascade neighborhood from 75 feet to 85 feet to allow more flexibility in design.
• Strengthening the incentives to developers if they include a school in their project.
• Creating permanent setbacks on east-west corridors to protect views of the Space Needle, which was accomplished without reducing development potential.

The Council also made modifications to the affordable housing incentive program. The Mayor’s proposed legislation created a requirement for developers to either include affordable housing in their projects or to contribute to funds for building low income housing if the developer wants to build above the base height, which is 85 feet in most of the neighborhood. The Council increased the amount of the required fee by about 30%, in hopes that this would stimulate more affordable housing in developments. If fully implemented, this could provide 10 to 20% of the City’s goal for affordable housing in the neighborhood. The challenge in creating these kinds of provisions is to balance the goal of providing affordable housing against the risk of decreased development. Raising the cost of residential development too much could cause developers to build offices instead, or even to decline to take advantage of the new zoning and only build less risky smaller developments.

Getting to the “right” fee amount is incredibly tricky, which is why I favored maintaining the Mayor’s proposed fee of $15.15 per gross square foot for residential units — the same as what developers pay to build across the street in Denny Triangle and downtown. This would put SLU on an equal playing field for development in the short-term and give Council time over the next few months to conduct a rigorous analysis of options for overhauling all our incentive programs, not just for SLU but also other neighborhoods with incentive zoning programs. However, a majority of Councilmembers believed that some increase over the proposed level could be included in this legislation, and we ultimately came to an agreement on a compromise package that can later be modified as we study the issue further.

There is general agreement that the incentive zoning included in this legislation is only one part of the answer. Recognizing this, the Mayor has convened a task force of stakeholders to analyze other tools to increase the supply of affordable housing and make recommendations on a comprehensive program that would consider not only South Lake Union, but the entire City. The Council will adopt a resolution that complements this by creating an Expert Review Panel to fully examine options for revising and expanding the incentive program. Ultimately, getting more housing built – affordable or market-rate — is the most critical step in making sure that all residents have a place to live, and the rezone is a major accomplishment in reaching that goal.

The Council will also adopt two additional resolutions as part of the South Lake Union package. One accepts the recommendations of the Council’s Race and Social Justice (RSJ) analysis of the rezone, and creates a work plan for job training and placement as well as actions to strengthen community resources for low and moderate income residents. The second resolution proposes several additional work plan items to follow up on the rezone, including providing view protection from Lake Union Park, funding a historic preservation survey, and advancing a review of transportation improvements.

Cities all over the country are looking at South Lake Union with envy. Seattle is incredibly fortunate in having the confluence of private and public investment that is creating a new neighborhood and providing jobs and housing for our future. While in the last two recessions, Seattle lagged a year or more behind the national recovery, this time we are leading the way. This legislation is a thoughtful and careful action that will enable Seattle to continue to prosper and will allow South Lake Union to be the great Urban Center envisioned in the South Lake Union Neighborhood Plan.

Earth Day, April 22, was a good day for a unanimous Mayor and Council to join Senators Cantwell and Murray and the Swinomish Indian Tribal Community in opposing a proposal before the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) that would approve the commercial production of genetically engineered salmon that have had genes from other species inserted into their DNA to make them grow faster.

Senators Murray and Cantwell, the two Alaska Senators and Alaska’s Representative are part of a bipartisan coalition that supports legislation that would ban the genetically modified fish or require it to be labeled as transgenic if the FDA approves it. Washington and Alaska lawmakers are reacting to the possible threat to the livelihood of Northwest and Alaska fishermen. They are also concerned about the potential health concerns relating to the consumption of genetically engineered salmon and the threat to wild salmon if these fish get loose and become established in the wild.

The Swinomish Indian Tribal Community is also alarmed about this proposal. Brian Cladoosby, Chairman of the Swinomish Tribal Community, in a comment letter opposing the proposed FDA action, stated: “The Tribe is also concerned that genetically engineered salmon pose a grave threat to the environment and to the health of the general population. We strongly believe that it would be an error for the FDA to accept the unsupported “guarantee” that all genetically engineered fish can be contained and not adversely impact people and the environment. History has shown that fish raised in aquaculture facilities can – and will – escape. It is also likely that genetically engineered fish would eventually be raised in open ocean net pens because nearly all commercial salmon production occurs in such pens. Farmed salmon routinely escape.”

The proposal, by AquaBounty Technologies Inc., is to alter Atlantic salmon with genes taken from the Pacific Chinook salmon and the eel-like Ocean Pout. Adding these growth genes from other species would cause the fish to produce growth hormones continuously, allowing it to grow bigger and faster than natural salmon.

Seattle, as the home of much of the Alaska fishing fleet, has a direct economic stake in the continued health of the fishing industry, which this proposal threatens in several ways. We also, of course, share the concerns about human health and the potential degradation of the environment and threat to the survival of endangered wild salmon.

More than 400,000 fishermen, environmentalists, food safety advocates and others have written to the FDA with concerns about the FDA’s preliminary finding that this project should be allowed to proceed. As a fallback, many commenters have suggested that, if the FDA allows the project to proceed, the company should be required to label the fish as genetically engineered when they are sold to consumers. In its resolution, the City also endorsed federal labeling of genetically engineered food and animals.

In the European Union, genetically modified organisms are tightly regulated, required to be labeled, and often banned from human consumption. In the United States there are fewer restrictions on genetic modifications and no labeling requirements. This fall Washington voters will have the opportunity to vote on an initiative requiring labeling of GMO food sold in the State.

Sound Transit will only contribute $75,000 to this design phase, with the City of Redmond contributing the remainder of the $1.9 million cost. Most of Redmond’s costs, in turn, are being funded by a federal grant, with the City only kicking in about $200,000.

This bridge was evaluated as part of the environmental review for East Link, but is not funded as part of the East Link project. Once the project reaches the 60% design level and construction costs can be estimated accurately, the partners will seek to identify funding to complete the bridge construction. If that funding can be identified, the bridge will be constructed by Sound Transit as part of East Link.

It’s exciting to see more options developed to connect the north side of 520 to Sound Transit’s light rail line on the south side, especially options that focus on pedestrian and bicycle access. The result will be a more attractive travel package for light rail passengers in this important employment center.

The two sides of the freeway are currently linked several blocks west of the Overlake Station at a major interchange where 148^th Avenue NE crosses the freeway, but this is not a very hospitable environment for pedestrians and bicycles, requiring them to cross access ramps that are part of the interchange. Microsoft funded another multi-modal bridge several blocks east of the Overlake Village Station, going diagonally across 520 from NE 31^st Street on the south to NE 36^th Street on the north side.

While these two crossings make pedestrian and bicycle crossings possible, they do not make them as attractive and easy to use as would be optimum. That’s where the Overlake Village Bridge comes in, making it possible to exit the train and cross directly to the north side when leaving the station. And, since it connects to the east-west bike/ped path on the north side of 520, which will run all the way into Seattle, it also makes it easy to get to other nearby destinations on foot or by bike, and facilitates mixed commutes like taking transit in the morning and returning home by bike.

This is the same type of crossing that is now in development at the Northgate Station to get across I-5, but the Overlake Village Bridge will be less expensive, as the distance is much shorter. And, on the planning horizon is another possible bike/ped bridge, connecting to the next light rail station, at the Overlake Transit Center, not far down the road. The City of Redmond and Sound Transit are thinking proactively about how to knit this community, sundered by SR 520, together to make it possible for light rail to be fully integrated with pedestrian and bicycle traffic in a truly transit oriented model.